Forni di Sotto

Forni di Sotto stands at 777 metres in the upper Tagliamento valley, in Carnia, hemmed in between two mountain chains. Its history begins with a disputed document: a donation of 778 naming a place called Forni, but nobody knows which of the Friulian Forni it refers to — those who assign it to Forni di Sopra point to a hamlet there called Cella, those who claim it for Forni di Sotto recall that the mother parish stood here, one of the eleven ancient pievi of Carnia. The question of precedence between the two churches went all the way to the pope: Forni di Sotto won, and Forni di Sopra obtained religious autonomy only in the fifteenth century. In 1326 both villages passed in fief to the Savorgnan, which is why they were called Forni Savorgnani.

The village you see today is new, and the reason is a date: on 26 May 1944 troops of the Wehrmacht, accompanied by Friulian republican militia, burned and razed the whole settlement. Of the old stone houses with wooden balconies for which Forni di Sotto was known, nothing is left: the only witnesses of the past are the three nineteenth-century fountains of Tredolo, Baselia and Vico. The church of San Lorenzo also survived, and holds a cycle of frescoes by Gian Francesco da Tolmezzo dated 1492.